Woman of Steel
by Shade Penn
Summary: Waking up long after her brother had left the planet, Thara Ak-Var didn't know what had been going on, especially since her last memory was of dying. Alone and confused, she tries to find Kal-El, but finds someone else instead.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

Though it should have been impossible, Thara was in disbelief when she felt feeling in her body. Not the searing pain she'd been experiencing in what felt like forever, the thoughts of keeping the planet her adoptive brother was going to be living on the only thing that made her go through with it.

She loved her brother before he had even been born because she saw how happy it made her adoptive parents. Her only regrets would have been she would never get to see Kara again, or that she would never be able to see Kal _ever_. It hurt knowing that the meteor shower was her home going up in bits of pieces, and just as she had been going out to find her baby brother, she discovered that the sun was going a bit dim, which she could only have assumed was from the meteor radiation.

So it had been her suicidal desire to see that even if meant her own life, she at least wanted Kal-El to have a place to live. She'd flown into the sun and used all the power her fire ability allowed to keep the sunlight going until the shower subsided, and though she had the expectancy of _dying_ for giving all she had, she had never expected to be _alive_ after that stunt.

But here she was, lying in a field that was clear as far as the eye could see. She looked down at herself to see she was still wearing her Guild suit; no burns, no tears or _anything_ appeared wrong with it. Thara tentatively rose to her feet, looking around and tried to see if there was those road things she'd seen before nearby. Those usually lead to a town or a city of some kind.

Thara had no luck, so she used her super speed, only for nothing to happen. She looked down at herself again to see if there was something wrong; she'd been under the impression that the sun _gave_ her the extra powers, not _take them away_. She bent her knees and jumped into the air, letting out a confused sigh as to why she could fly, but she wasn't going to complain about that.

If people saw her flying through the air, then they'll just be passed off as crazy or something she hoped. Her first and foremost mission was to find and protect Kal-El after all. As she was flying through the air, she decided she should at _least_ try to be discreet as any attention to her wouldn't be good for Kal in the future.

When she finally came across a town, she landed a little ways away before causally strolling through it; hoping people just thought she was wearing a costume. She walked by a window, but immediately backtracked and simply _stared_ at her reflection. The face was still the same, but before she had blonde hair up in a ponytail and blue eyes, she now had the same ponytail but with _red hair and red eyes_.

Thara raised one hand, her disbelief only increasing as she saw the reflection do the same and her chest felt constricted. She breathed heavily as she tried to grab the first passerby and ask what the heck was going on, but her hand simply went _through_ them. She stared at her hand and tried another person, her desperation quickly turning into terror as she went through _all_ of the people.

Was she _dead?_ Thara couldn't help but find the bitter irony in this mess; _of course_ she'd come back as a ghost, only in this state she wouldn't be able to keep her promise and take care of her brother even _if_ she found him. Thara let out a laugh, high and psychotic; no one would give her a strange look this time because they _couldn't see her_, this was her punishment for all she'd done in her short life, wasn't it? To wander around unseen, especially if she ever found Kal, what a _fitting_ punishment it was.

Thara's laugh quickly turned into a sob as she knew she might not even get to see Kal in _this_ state; how many children were there in this world? She didn't even know where or how long she might have had to wait around to come back as a ghost. Kal could have been a grown man now for all she knew (and didn't _that_ hurt even more), and she didn't even know what he _looked_ like.

Thara clutched her chest and closed her eyes at the thought her heart would burst forth from her chest-wait, dead people don't have _heartbeats_. She snapped her eyes open and looked down at her chest, furrowing her brow at the beating under her hand. It _shouldn't_ be possible, but she could still _feel it beating_. How did this happen? She couldn't be alive, people would have seen her and she definitely wouldn't have gone right through them. Yet how could she be dead if she still had a pulse somehow?

What had happened after she blacked out?

Thara closed her eyes once more and thought back to flying into the sun, but excruciating pain had taken up most of her thoughts as the only thing from _that_ was like she was being burned from the inside out as she felt her own fire going out and restoring the sun's. So what had happened? She still had her flight, but no speed, had her other abilities stayed?

Thara tried to see through the wall of the shop she was in front of, but nothing happened, so she switched to heat vision and cast her gaze onto her hand. It…_worked_. Thara blinked at two things; one, she could still use heat vision, and two; she was still invulnerable. She tried out the hearing, but again nothing worked. And then came the big one of her arsenal, the one she'd had before the others; her fire ability.

Thara held out her hands in front of her and closed her eyes in deep concentration, and only opened them when she suddenly heard screaming around her and saw her hands on fire. She saw people running from the flames that seemed to be attached to nothing and she halted the flames, letting her arms fall to her side. So people could still see the fire then? Huh, that was something for her to store away for later.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew this calm behavior wasn't normal, but she had never been very normal. Though people she could go through, Thara wondered if she could go through _things_ or still had her super strength. She placed her hand on the wall, feeling the smooth bricks under her hands and then slammed her palm into the wall, the force breaking through the wall, causing even more screaming to erupt.

Thara looked around quickly and took to the air, thinking that even if they couldn't see or feel her, she didn't want to draw any more attention. She _really_ should have found a more secluded place to do this. But she needed to be able to find out how long she had been…gone for. She knew she had 'disappeared' in 1978, but what year was it now?

She had no idea how old her brother even was, and the only thing she knew was that he was either a child or an adult most likely, but either one didn't ease her thoughts as it still meant even though she kept the sun going, she had still missed out on Kal's life. Bitterly she reminded herself she wouldn't be able to do anything anyway.

But even all through that, Thara was still going to find Kal, just to _see_ him at least and know that this had not been for naught.

* * *

**A/N: I've had this idea in my head for a while and thought about how to go about it, so here it is. A little known Kryptonian probably, but Thara Ak-Var intrigued me, and though her bio won't be _exactly_ like the comics one and a fan of the comics probably knows that, but I took some liberty though kept her death similar to how she died in the comics.**

**The timeline takes place before both ROTG and Superman Returns as it serves a way for Thara to meet Jason.**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1

After flying around and feeling like she'd seen everything a million times now, Thara finally found a city she might be have better chance of finding a calendar in. It didn't make much sense to her how she could perch on the roof of buildings but not touch people, though she suspected it was because the buildings weren't animate that she didn't go through them. Though it didn't diminish how this seemed like a raw deal.

Thara looked down at her suit and then thought about the people down below that were wearing heavy coats, and while she'd observed that the climate south of the earth's equator was warm, but northern ones weren't. So she reasoned she was at least north of wherever, though it didn't escape her how she wasn't feeling the effects the people on the streets were.

Whether it was her retaining not being affected by the atmosphere or not she was unsure of.

And that's was when she noticed the lump in her suit and her breath hitched as she pulled the necklace out of her high neckline. It still looked like the symbol of the house of El, she having received one so the other Kryptonians _knew_ that she was a member of the family even if she didn't bear the _name_. The crystal was clear like before, but now it had a reddish glint in it, and when she touched it she felt it warm beneath her fingers.

_'This is so weird.'_ She thought in disbelief, but she bit her lip and took the necklace off before holding it out before her, waiting with baited breath before letting out a strangled choke that she didn't let turn into a sob as she looked into the crystal and saw very clearly an image of Kara smiling at her, the image shifting to Jor and a heavily pregnant Lara, causing Thara's _not_ sobbing to come out even more, before she didn't even bother with holding it back as the image once more shifted to that of her birth parents.

Emotions were not a good thing to let take you over, Thara knew this and had closed off her heart to most except the ones that meant the most to her. But when she found out about Kal-El, she'd _tried_ to be warm, and had hoped her icy heart was capable of melting. She had thought about trying to be warmer person before Kal as the civil war had ended and Zod and his followers were to be sent to the Phantom Zone, but Kal was the one who initiated it.

Thara chuckled, the sound being a strange one to her ears as it was still mixed in with sobbing, if only Kal could know just how much she'd done with trying to be warm…and then she was literally burning from the inside out.

The redhead winced at the thought of her…death? She still wasn't sure _what_ had gone on after flying into the sun and channeling her fire into it to help it recover from the meteors…of her _home_. She winced again at the thought of everyone but Kal being dead; it didn't matter even if it was fifty years, the pain was still very fresh in her mind from the day she saw those meteors falling from the sky and had made her choice.

Thara put the necklace back around her neck and fell from the side of the building, outstretching her arms in a swan dive before pulling up at the last minute, the exhilaration of flight being a distraction from more depressing matters. She looked at the setting sun in the distance, this being something she enjoyed about earth, the natural beauty the planet held leaving her in awe; and from had planet that had been only of ice and snow, she had reluctantly welcomed the change in scenery.

Thara caught sight once more of her reflection in the passing window and noticed subtle differences from before; as the sun went down, the strands of her ponytail flickering like flames, and her skin began to have a reddish tint, like she was burning up from a fever; Thara winced at how the 'burning' was certainly appropriate.

She reflected that she seemed to be getting more emotional and wondered if it was because of her wanting to be warm and toss off the years of being a cold, decisive solider for some time. But of course she wasn't sure how she'd act with interacting with people, since she couldn't _talk_ to them and they couldn't see her or anything, so she supposed it didn't matter.

Thara waited until the sun had finished setting before she let out a breath, taking note of the fact she couldn't see her own breath and looked up at the bright and shining moon. She stared up at it, staring at it like it had all the answers, but she turned away and flew in the opposite direction to find a calendar or something to tell her what the year was.

She wished finding something out _could_ be as simple as asking the moon, but she didn't get her hopes up with something like that.

Thara stopped at a darkened shop and peered in and in the darkness could make out a calendar, but she couldn't see the year. She contemplated simply smashing the window, but decided against it as she wanted to be more discreet than that and used her strength to force the door open, floating over to the calendar, but reeled back in shock at the year staring back at her.

_2008._

Thara went over the numbers in her head, and she felt herself going numb by the conclusion she was coming to: Kal-El _was_ a grown man now and she _had_ failed him. She was a _terrible_ guardian and sister. Thara steeled herself and pushed back her overwhelming feelings of self-disappointment before trying to think rationally: she was a solider first and foremost after all.

Kal might _not_ be a child, but he still had to _be_ here on this planet, and if he was a grown man it meant he probably had to look like his parents. It wasn't full proof, but maybe she could use the resemblance as a starting point and then try to see if they had any powers like she knew Kal would have, he lived under the sun too.

With that one ray of hope to drive away her increasingly depressing thoughts, she left the shop and took to the sky once more, intent on to keep going somewhere until she caught a lead. She wasn't stupid and didn't think this would be a sure thing, but she would search _every city on the planet_ to find her brother.

He was the only family she had left now.

Thara stopped midflight as she noticed strands of glowing yellow sand going into houses. Furrowing her brown with confusion she followed one strand to a child's bedroom and floating by the window she watched as she sand hovered over the child's head and her eyes widening in astonishment the sand took a miniature form of an earth dinosaur.

_'How is it I never noticed this before?_' she thought and floated up to another strand of sand, contemplating if she should touch if or not. If it was any other situation on Krypton she'd know what to do, but even after spending several months on earth she didn't have any experiences to back up her knowledge so she was at a bit of a loss.

But eventually she decided to take a chance and followed after the sand, halting in front of it to see what would happen.

"I'd move if I were you." A deep male voice said and the surprise of hearing a voice this high up, or that someone was _talking_ to her at all made Thara look in the direction she'd heard it come from and saw a boy that looked a few years older than her hovering in the air like she was.

"You can see me?" She asked and hated how stunned she sounded, but before another word could be said, the sand blew over her and she suddenly felt _very_ tired; her eyes rolled to the back of her head as she started to free fall, her vision growing continually darker and waited for impact.

* * *

"Oh boy, this I was not expecting." Jack said watching the younger looking redhead start to fall. He reached out and grabbed a hold of the arm to her funny-looking jumpsuit, but let go in surprise as the girl was warm enough to get him 'melting' as the droplets slid off his hand. He watched the girl fall further and wouldn't be able to catch her, wincing when he saw her hit the ground, a good-sized crater in her wake, but she must have been alive if the dream sand was taking a form above her head.

Of _course_ she was probably alive, if she was immortal a fall wouldn't kill her; it'd _hurt_ but she wouldn't die.

Jack flew in for a closer look…well, _another_ closer look as he didn't recognize her. The sand had morphed into two forms, one a miniature version of the girl, the other a _baby_ of all things and the girl ran up to the baby and twirled it in her arms, briefly stopping as the baby disappeared and the girl looked around until another person was formed, another girl with long hair and the two hugged, but the sand disappeared altogether as the redhead let out a yawn as her red eyes opened.

"What…?" she slurred, but her eyes sharpened as she caught sight of Jack, sitting up abruptly and stared at him intently. "You…you can see me?"

"I think we already did this part." Jack said sardonically, but pulled his hand back as the girl grabbed a hold of his arm. "Watch it."

The girl's eyes widened and she stared down at her frost covered hand before it melted away under the heat of her own skin. "How…I can't interact with anyone else, but I can _touch_ you…" her eyes narrowed in thought.

"Let me guess," Jack drawled as he stood up and leaned on his staff, "when you woke up, a voice from the moon told you your name and when you tried to talk to people they went right through you and couldn't hear you?"

"Voice?" The girl repeated sharply. "I didn't hear a voice."

"You didn't? Where'd you wake up then?" Jack questioned sounding vaguely interested.

"I woke up in a field in the day time, and my _name_ is Thara Ak-Var." The redhead hissed.

"The day time, huh? That's kinda strange. And what kind of a name is Thara?" Jack paused. "How do you _know_ that's your name anyway?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Thara questioned in confusion. "It's the name I was _born_ with after all."

"You can _remember_ things?" Jack asked and looked up at the moon with a sense of disbelief. "A kid gets to keep her memories but I can't?"

"I'm not a kid, I'm _16_." Thara retorted sharply.

"Well I'm 18, so you're a kid to me." Jack shot back. "And speaking of kids, you got some strange dreams."

"Dreams, you mean the sand?" Thara questioned and flushed as she if she knew what he was talking about. But of course she had to as she was the one who was _thinking_ about it. "It was my cousin and my baby-"

"You're a _mother?"_ The older teen questioned. "Talk about a kid with a kid."

Thara scowled at him. "Well he's _not_ a child anymore." She slumped her shoulders and looked away. "He hasn't been for the past thirty years, not even knowing I exist. And the worst part is…I never even got to see him."

"Did you die having him or something?" Jack questioned.

Thara sighed. "Or something." She muttered and stood out of the crater, and looked up at the sand still flying around the sky. "So what's up with the sand?"

"You really _are_ a new one aren't you?" Jack said, his tone now sounding almost humorous. "That's the dream sand, from the Sandman, who gives kids dreams. And you just got a first-hand account of _that_."

Thara rolled her eyes. "I was…curious about it." She said dusty any gravel off her suit.

"What's with the clothes? You can change you know." Jack explained.

"Yes, I know about touching inanimate objects, but the thought never crossed my mind." Thara replied. "And what's wrong with my suit?"

"Let's just say it won't be your _features_ that make you look like a kid." Jack replied smirking.

Thara glowered at him. "Why couldn't the armour have stayed?" she muttered and then louder she said. "Do you know where-" As she looked around at the store behind her she froze. "What are those?!" she shouted and pointed at the tiny figurines in the dark store.

Jack raised a brow at what got the girl so worked up and followed her gaze before snorting. "Those are Superman figurines. Hey, what's wrong with you?" he asked as Thara's face paled suddenly, making the girl go an odd shade of faded pink. Thara walked over to the window and smashed the glass. "What are you doing?!"

Thara picked up one of the figures, staring intently down at the symbol on the figures chest, feeling her own chest constrict and the necklace feel heavy on its simple string. "This symbol…" she whispered and her thoughts zeroed in on the impossible, but it _wasn't_ was it? Her head snapped up in Jack's direction. "Who's Superman?"

"'Who's Superman'?" Jack parroted. "_Everyone_ knows who Superman is!"

Latching onto knowledge practically at her finger tips; Thara would be a fool to let it slip away. And this soldier was no fool. "Everyone knows huh? Can _you_ tell me about him?"


End file.
